a Vatican Visit November 30, 2006

We booked a guided tour of the Vatican today and met our guide at 11AM at the Vatican Museum. The first part of the tour took us through the museum which is highlighted by Greek and Roman antiquities although there are also Egyptian, Etruscan and Renaissance works also in the numerous galleries and Papal apartments. The works are too numerous to try and name and exciting as it was to be able to view these treasures this tour for me was about the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. This may sound a little shallow but like the Louvre in Paris the overall size and scope of the collection is too overwhelming to take in during a three hour visit.

The Sistine Chapel, highlighted by Michelangelo’s ceiling is worth the price of admission. The amount of work and time required to complete the ceiling is astounding. His interpretation of the Bible is moving when you see the entire ceiling and not just the “Creation of Man” that is the icon of the work. I didn’t know that the walls are also decorated with frescoes from some of the great masters of the time including Botticelli and Signorelli. The most famous of the wall frescoes though is also by Michelangelo and is entitled “The Last Judgment”. A monumental work on its own in which the artist had his revenge on Pope Julius II who had Michelangelo’s ceiling figures covered with water color “underwear” because the Pope Julius was a very conservative man. Michelangelo painted the likeness of his face onto a figure of Satan in the famous wall fresco.

St. Peter’s, Catholicism’s most sacred shrine, is the grandest structure I have ever entered. This is another one that I don’t have words to describe. The size, the design, the art, the detail, the materials used all goes to make an impression that will last a lifetime. I would urge anyone that comes to Italy to make Rome one of your stops and St. Peter’s high on your list of must do’s.